Smiley’s People by John le Carre 1979

I’ve written previously about how I prefer not to read too much about a novel in advance of reading the novel itself – how it can prejudice the reader, shaping their expectations one way or another. But you can take that approach too far, and I think I did here. I knew Smiley’s People was one of le Carre’s series of novels about espionage during the Cold War, but it wasn’t until I glanced at the back cover after completing the novel that I found out it was the seventh in the Smiley series. Each of these novels are capable in theory of being read independently of one another, of course, but they accumulate a depth of background that over time makes the idea of them being stand-alone novels harder to sustain.

Smiley’s People, as well as being the seventh Smiley novel, is also the third and final novel in what is known as the Karla trilogy, the others being Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy. Smiley’s People presents itself as a novel of byzantine complexity, with plots within plots. But if you take a step back in some respects it is quite simple. Karla, Smiley’s Russian nemesis, has a daughter who needs psychiatric treatment not available inside the Soviet bloc. Through an admittedly complex route Smiley eventually discovers the identity of this daughter, and the rest is relatively simple –  Karla is blackmailed into defecting to the West, the alternative being the loss of both his and his daughter’s safety and security.

What I can’t be sure about is whether reading this novel out of order, as I did, would have made much difference to my appreciation and understanding of the complexities of the plot. I suspect it might have made things easier, although now I have committed this mistake I don’t think reading the earlier novels in the series would remedy the situation.

Is the novel any good? Did I enjoy reading it? Well Smiley is an enigmatic, closed down character – we really only get glimpses of his personality in, for example, his relationship with his ex-wife. He is not all-powerful – while he comes out on top in the struggle with Karla, there are avoidable losses along the way. Without giving too much away, there are deaths in the novel which are foreseeable and avoidable. If you enjoy complex novels where staying one step ahead of the protagonists is a challenge then this is one to definitely add to your TBR list. Stylistically I noticed little of the prose which made The Spy Who Came in from the Cold stand out. Here’s a scene setting from the later novel:

The café was the last in the street, if not in all Paris, to lack both a juke-box and neon lighting – and to remain open in August – though there were bagatelle tables that bumped and flashed from dawn till night. For the rest, there was the usual mid-morning hubbub, of grand politics, and horses, and whatever else Parisians talked; there was the usual trio of prostitutes murmuring among themselves, and a sullen young waiter in a soiled shirt who led them to a table in a corner that was reserved with a grimy Campari sign.

And this is from the earlier novel:

They walked to her flat through the rain and they might have been anywhere—Berlin, London, any town where paving stones turn to lakes of light in the evening rain, and the traffic shuffles despondently through wet streets.

For me there is no question as to which excerpt captures the atmosphere more effectively and concisely. I appreciate you could do the same with just about any two novels using selected quotes, but I think my point is that in the later novel le Carre gets bogged down with the procedural elements of the plot and overlooks the need to capture the moment.

To do le Carre justice I probably need to read more of his work, but one as always comes up against the conundrum of there being so many books, and so little time.